The notice of action has finally arrived from the City of Lebanon.

On November 14, 2011 the Planning Board accepted the minutes from the meetings at which River Park received Final Subdivision Approval (October 11, 2011) and Site Plan Approval (October 24, 2011). Now that the minutes are finalized, municipal staff will write the Notice of Action. The Notice of Action is the document that formally notifies us of the approval vote and of the many conditions attached to that approval.

Lyme Properties has written a letter to the Lebanon City Manager requesting the overdue Notice of Decision.

Last night the Lebanon Planning Board voted 6-3 to approve the Final Site Plan application for River Park.  The Final Subdivision Plan application was approved by the Planning Board on October 11, 2011.

This success could not have been achieved without the steadfast support of our neighbors, abutters, and Friends of River Park.  Your commitment to West Lebanon and demand for a transparent approval process prevailed over the forces trying to circumvent the zoning changes approved by the voters on March 9, 2010.

This letter is in response to the PowerPoint presentation by David Brooks at the October 11,2011 public hearing. XYZ Dairy was not given a copy of this presentation, labeled “River Park,Draft Conditions of Approval, Recommended Traffic Mitigation” in advance of the hearing andwe are not sure if the materials were distributed to the Board in written format either. XYZDairy was provided a copy only after we went to City Hall and requested a copy of the materialsintroduced in the public record.

We thought everyone might like to see an aerial photo of the River Park Corn Maze.  We are closing the maze and preparing to harvest the corn.

The draft recommendations from the Lebanon Planning Staff, along with Lyme's comments, are available for download.

We had a remarkable turnout on Saturday for the Corn Roast given the nasty weather.  We opened the corn maze and the 50+ neighbors seemed to enjoy it and to appreciate the metaphor for the Lebanon permitting process.  Lyme has decided to leave the site open for a couple of weeks to allow the general public to experience the land and navigate the corn maze. 

Thank you to the 40 Friends of River Park who attended the Lebanon Planning Board hearing last night.  I regret the public was not invited to comment last night since that is the fundamental purpose of a public hearing as mandated by state law and the Lebanon zoning ordinance. I can only hope this was an oversight, albeit inexplicable, which unfortunately denied you the opportunity to voice your views and beliefs in a critical public setting.